So he went blind in agony, felt muscles burn, heard bones break.
And then he healed.
Because his immortal flesh never failed to come away from a beating unscathed. His heart, however, had no such luck.
Fighting had fed the darkness inside him for a long time, but after crushing Scarlet, fighting no longer helped him escape the pain that haunted him. He retired the sport and moved outside of town, where his limbs ached with Scarlet’s distance but his mind had room to breathe.
He never saw Scarlet, but Nate—who visited frequently, though Tristan insisted he did not need company—had kept him informed of Gabriel and Scarlet’s relationship.
It seemed they were growing closer. A fact that almost made Tristan want to go back to fighting. But isn’t this what he had wanted all along? Scarlet safe. Scarlet happy. Scarlet loved.
Yes. This was what he wanted.
A crunch of dead leaves alerted Tristan to someone nearing him in the trees. He turned to see Gabriel approach from the side and then went back to shooting without a word.
Gabriel pursed his lips. “We need to talk about Scarlet.”
Tristan lowered the bow as a ripple of tension rolled through his body.
“I love her,” Gabriel said.
Something twisted in Tristan’s chest. “Good.”
Gabriel paused. “If you want her, you need to come home and make things right with her. Now.”
Tristan stared at him. Was this a threat? Or an opportunity?
Did it matter?
When Tristan didn’t speak, Gabriel scratched his chin. “I’ve watched her heart break over you too many times. I won’t let it happen again. If you don’t fix things with her now, I won’t give her back.”
Tristan rubbed the back of his neck, hating his life. But what could he do? What could he possibly do?
Not a damn thing.
He shook his head. “There’s nothing to fix.”
Gabriel looked sad—the bastard actually looked sad. As if Tristan’s surrender of Scarlet had somehow wounded him.
With his eyes on the ground, Gabriel nodded. “I’ll make sure she’s happy.”
And then Gabriel, who had somehow become the better man between them, turned and walked away.
CHAPTER 28
New York 1983
From the moment Scarlet awoke in a park, staring across blades of grass at Tristan’s green eyes telling her she was safe, she knew something was wrong.
But it wasn’t until an hour later, when everyone gathered in Nate’s house for a Welcome Back To Life meeting, that Scarlet realized what it was.
“I’m making progress on a vaccine, but I’d like to do some more experiments with your blood.”
Scarlet said, “Of course.”
Nate nodded. “I will begin performing a sequence of tests in an effort to…”
Her thoughts drifted away from Nate as she thought about being cured. A cure would mean no more dying. It would mean Gabriel could love whomever he wanted. It would mean she and Tristan could—
Tristan shifted uncomfortably in his seat across from her.
Scarlet wrinkled her nose. She’d only been alive for an hour and already she was annoyed with their connection. With Tristan.
He’d looked at her. He’d felt her. But he hadn’t spoken a word to her since they’d left the park. If he was going to continue reading her emotions like an open book, the least he could do was exchange a word or two with her in return. But what had she expected? A plea for forgiveness? A confession of true love?
An image of him kissing the sexy redhead snaked into her head and unsolicited jealousy stirred low in her belly. She clamped down on that emotion for fear of Tristan reading her again and getting the wrong idea.
She no longer had any interest in the green-eyed Archer. Shaking him out of her head, Scarlet looked around Nate’s large living room, taking in the tall windows, giant rugs, and leather furniture. Huh. Nate never used to be so…coordinated. She ran her hand along the soft, leather armrest of the couch she sat on and, once again, felt like something was wrong.
There was a different vibe in the air, a tension of sorts, that hadn’t existed in her prior lives. What was it?
She looked at Gabriel, who gave her an easy smile. She smiled back. She had tried—truly tried—to give her heart to him completely in her last life, but thoughts of Tristan snuck into her soul as she was dying, leaving no doubt that her heart had never been, and never would be, completely Gabriel’s. So she and Gabriel had some issues to work out.
But that was not what felt wrong.
Tristan slanted his green eyes to her.
Why was he even here? Wasn’t he supposed to flee from her presence the moment she came back to life?
“…so we’ll start next week,” Nate’s emotionless voice said. “One of the tests will require both of you to come in at the same time, but it should only be for a day. Maybe then we’ll be on our way to a possible cure.”
Scarlet blinked her attention back to Nate. “Wait—what?”
Nate looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks. “I need both you and Tristan to spend a day in my lab.”
“Together?” she squawked. She actually squawked. Very embarrassing.
Nate nodded.
Scarlet opened her mouth to explain rationally and maturely—without squawking—how she didn’t feel like hanging out with Tristan for an hour, let alone a whole day. But Tristan cut her off.
“Yeah. That’s not happening.”
She blinked. It was one thing for Scarlet to reject Tristan’s company. It was another thing entirely for Tristan to reject hers.
“Why is he still here?” she asked, pointing to Tristan.
A muscle flexed in his scruffy jaw. Why did he always have sexy scruff? Did the man not own a razor?
His hard eyes shifted and a look of, well…Scarlet wasn’t sure. Contempt, maybe? Hot lust? A look of something passed between them, making Scarlet’s throat go dry.
“Tristan is here,” Nate crossed his arms, “to help with my experiments to find you a cure. I’ve insisted that Tristan live relatively close to you this time, both for his sake and yours. I need Tristan’s blood to be strong while I’m running these tests and distance from you weakens him. And I’ll need your blood to be somewhat weak so I can create a vaccine based on your most vulnerable state. Limited interaction between the two of you will be safe as long as you don’t touch one another, and it will only be for a few weeks.”
Scarlet swallowed, trying to get the dryness out of her mouth.
Nate continued. “I’ll be monitoring you very carefully and, if your eyes begin to glow, we’ll make a new plan. In the meantime, I need to take daily blood samples. Where will you be living? With Gabriel?”